As the Internet becomes a more accepted source for obtaining information, the need for effective systems and methods for searching the Internet has increased. Because of the shear volume of information now available, it is not uncommon to perform keyword searches with typical search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and Excite, and receive more that 100 pages of results. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly difficult for client users of the search engines to find the actual information they are searching for within the very large number of search results.
In response, many search engines and other search utilities now provide “advanced search” interfaces through which searchers may input many different parameters beyond simple keyword entry. For example, in Yahoo!'s advanced web page search interface, a searcher may select any combination of different relationships between keywords in a search (e.g., “all of these words”, “the exact phrase”, “any of these words”, and “none of these words”), a temporal limitation on when the web page was last updated, a limitation on what top-level domain names to search, a limitation based on available legal rights, file format limitations, filter limitations, country and language limitations, among other parameters. Through the advanced search interface, sophisticated searchers can significantly narrow the results set of a search and more easily find the exact information they are looking for.
The advanced search systems and interfaces, while very powerful, are under-utilized by many, possibly a majority, of a search engine's clients. Most clients are unsophisticated and use only simple keyword searches. One reason for this is that advanced searches typically utilize a large and complicated advance search interface that can discourage unsophisticated users. As a result, these clients are typically frustrated by the shear volume of simple keyword search results and often blame their frustration on the quality of the search engine.